Spirituality of Surrendering

We must renounce the mistaken notion that surrendering is a sign of weakness.

In fact, it is a sign of a different kind of strength — mental and spiritual strength.

According to pastor Rick Warren

“Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works. All other approaches lead to frustration, disappointment, and self-destruction.”

If you really want to enjoy a joyful, peaceful life, you need to let go of your need to control the events of your life. You think you can control life events, but the fact of the matter is that you can’t.

Let me tell you a story.

I have a Facebook friend who is a staunch member of the NRA, and we have heated discussions about guns. He owns several guns, and I don’t own any. And I have no plans to ever own one. He can’t understand that. He tells me that he owns the guns not to hurt anybody but only to protect his family.

That is an unexamined jargon, an unconscious cliche you hear from a lot of gun owners.

A report published on July 22, 2019, in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine says that

“having guns at home is a bad idea for the gun owner, family members, friends, and co-workers.”

Evidence from studies over the past two decades shows a strong connection between the presence of firearm in the home and an increased risk of suicide for the gun owner and other family members. In 2019, half of suicides in America was by using a firearm.

I told him that trying to protect the family by owning a gun is like a guy trying to protect his horses by guarding just the gate, while there is no fencing around the barn.

Let me explain:

My family consists of my wife Judy, and two sons, Johnny, and Tommy. On weekdays, Judy goes to work at 7 in the morning. She drives 7 miles to her office, driving through 37 intersections one way, that is 74 intersections a day.

Who is protecting her from a possible collision that could happen in any one of those intersections?

Who is protecting her from hitting or being hit by the hundreds of cars that drive in front of her, behind her, and beside her?

At work, who is protecting her from a possible, random office shooting?

When she is having lunch with her friends at the nearby restaurant, who is there to protect her from a possible kook with a gun and evil in his heart?

When she is crossing the street from the restaurant to the office, who is protecting her from a possible drunk driver?

You get the idea.

My son Johnny goes to a work program 10 miles from home and every day. He is being driven to and from his program by drivers of a para-transit company, whom I have never met or know anything about. Johnny is exposed to the same possible dangers on the road and the workplace like Judy is.

My younger son Tommy lives 300 miles away from our home. I have no idea or control about where he drives each day. Once he drove to Tallahassee to visit his friends and ran out of gas and was stranded somewhere in the middle of the night. I heard about that, months after it happened. Had I heard about it in real time, I would have had a heart attack. There is no way to control where Tommy goes, who he goes with or what influences and interactions and challenges he faces daily.

My loved ones are exposed to so many so-called dangers and vulnerabilities. It is impossible to protect them from all possible eventualities of life. Having a gun does not protect us from most of the dangers lurking out there.

It is a miracle that we are safe and secure each day and it has been that way for all these years.

Sharon Janis, author of Spirituality for Dummies, explains how surrender helped her to be happy and content:

“I wanted to be in tune with the universe. Clearly, the all-pervasive intelligence that guides the atoms and galaxies to move with such perfection could choose the best path for my life. My best course of action was to get out of the way of its flow and to be happy with whatever unfolded. Unknowingly, I had tapped into the secret of surrender as a path to happiness.”